In another completely normal moment for the United Kingdom, a Labour MP has accused Ann Widdecombe of being “woke.”

Labour politician Jonathan Hinder branded the notable 77-year-old right-wing pundit and Reform UK politician a member of the so-called “woke right” after she urged Tory leader Kemi Badenoch to clarify her stance on trans prisoners.

Former Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe argued that Badenoch should “grow up” and “tell us then if it is Conservative policy to put trans prisoners in danger.”

“We have a duty to ensure [trans female prisoners’] safety too, and beyond all peradventure, they would not be safe in a male prison but liable to serious sexual assault, including rape,” she wrote in a column for GB News.

In an apparent attempt to highlight the fact that Labour’s views on trans rights are to the right of Ann Widdecombe’s, Hinder responded to an X/Twitter post highlighting the article, writing: “The ‘Woke Right’ not letting this drop. Incredible.”

The “Woke Right” not letting this drop.

Incredible. https://t.co/dKDUoWfPmI

— Jonathan Hinder MP (@Jonathan_Hinder) August 6, 2025

“Woke” is an adjective typically used to refer to awareness of systemic issues against marginalised groups, such as racial prejudice or LGBTQ+ discrimination. It is typically associated with left-wing politics and is often used by right-wing pundits as an insult.

Widdecombe’s comments come after Reform UK’s justice adviser, Vanessa Frake, told The Telegraph that trans women shouldn’t be automatically banned from female prisons.

The former prison security official said inmates should be assessed on an “individual basis” and that those convicted of sexual offences would likely be held in a male facility.

“There are equally vile women as there possibly are trans women,” Frake said. “It’s all about the risk assessments for me, and each has to be done on an individual basis.” However, a Reform UK spokesperson clarified that Frake’s opinion did not “constitute party policy.”

In a bid to clarify amid confusion over the right-wing party’s policy, Widdecombe wrote that it is “indeed Reform policy” that a “prisoner should service the sentence imposed in a prison of the sex that he was born in.”

“However, there is a very small number of trans people who have gone the whole hog. They have undergone extensive surgery to remove their male genitalia and to create a seemingly female body,” she continued.

“They have developed breasts and have taken drugs to suppress male hormones and promote female ones. They look and sound exactly like the women they believe they become, and they may have lived that way for years.”

There were 268 transgender prisoners recorded in March 2023, according to the Ministry of Justice. Of the 48 that were housed in female prisons, five identified as trans women, 41 were trans men, and 2 were non-binary. It is well documented that trans female prisoners in male prisons are far more likely to be sexually assaulted.

Who is Ann Widdecombe?

Right-wing pundit, politician, and TV personality, Ann Widdicombe has had a storied history in British politics and in society.

Originally a member of the Conservative Party, Widdicombe was an MP for Maidstone and The Weald from 1987 to 2010.

She became the parliamentary under-secretary of state for social security between 1990 and 1993, the minister for employment between 1993 and 1995, and the minister for prisons between 1995 and 1997, all under John Major’s government.

She eventually defected to the Brexit Party in 2019 before it was renamed Reform UK in 2021, where she has remained. She became its immigration and justice spokesperson in 2023.

Widdecombe also famously participated in the eighth series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2010, coming dead last in the show.

She has made an array of controversial remarks about the LGBTQ+ community over her decades-long career. In 2012, she voiced support for so-called conversion therapy, saying “unhappy homosexuals” could become heterosexual and were being “denied any chance whatever” to change their sexuality by LGBTQ+ activists.

She also expressed opposition to same-sex marriage in 2014, telling The Guardian that heterosexual marriage had served society “throughout the millennia.”

In 2019, following her move to Reform UK, she said that she hoped that “science may yet” provide a cure for homosexuality, telling Sky News: “The fact we now think it’s quite impossible for people to switch sexuality doesn’t mean science may not yet produce an answer at some stage.”

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